Garden Share Collective : March 2015

on March 2, 2015

Welcome to another round of the Garden Share Collective, which is a group of avid gardeners who share their adventures in their veggie patches. This month I have contended with ex-cyclone Marcia and as you can see I have seedlings that are waiting patiently to go into the soil.

Take a squizz at the end of this post to view other gardens around Australia and the world. In the meantime scroll slowly and enjoy the little work I have done this month, thanks to the weather.

Did someone mention rain? We had only seven days without it in February, 430mm of rain fell in four days thanks to Marcia and we still have had blistering 30’c days which are roasting the garden. It has been a week since the major downpour and we still have puddles in the soil, springs have popped up and the clay sections of the garden are just impossible to work in.

We also had a small landslip in the garden, the heavy rain took some of the soil on an adventure to some fruit trees which are below the garden. I am glad we had very minimal damage from the weather, the only thing I am complaining about is too much rain. I am wishing I could send it to all you girls in the southern states who have copped 40’c days these past weeks.

Marcia has prolonged my planting, it should have been happening when she arrived. So I am still waiting for the ground to dry out so we can get the rotary hoe back in to turn the soil. Surely it will stop raining soon. So we had a total of 533mm for the month.

Out of control garden bed thanks to rain, heat and sunshine. Hope to reclaim this bed by the end of March. Also thanks to the rain we have zucchini’s rotting with a little help from fruit fly of course too. It is a sad state of affairs in the veg patch at the moment. Wait till next month, I hope to be gloating.

Loads of chilli’s again

We took the heads off the sunflowers and planted beans and peas at the bottom. They should make a great trellis.

HARVESTING: Okra, chillies, leeks, spring onions, kale and a few sweet peppers. This month the garden has provided curries. We did have a few sneaky spuds the other day which ended up as soup. Otherwise it has been pretty sad.

TO DO: Brace yourself

Plough, hill, mulch and plant three large gardens

Sow seeds and succession planting in two weeks

Strip the kale, mulch and fertilize

Mulch and fertilize all our fruit trees

Chookpoo the rhubarb and remove the shade cloth

Transplant the taro with the other rhizomes

Plant ginger (yes early but it will go to sleep for a few months)

Plough another bed for potatoes and garlic. March is premium time for us for garlic growing.

Mow all the grass around the beds and keep down – its time to reclaim our space

Fertilize any plants that are staying in the garden – possibly the eggplant and sweet peppers

Hey Lizzie … isn’t it great getting the garden ready for winter? Your chillies by the way are looking amazing .. Sunflowers make the best trellis and the birds love ’em. Your ‘to do’ list makes me feel tired .. When is a good time to plant rhubarb? I have finally decided to grow it! 😀

E, I have already started with planting since I wrote my post, finally a break in the weather. Except now we are going to have a small heat wave, not great for seedlings but at least they will be in the ground.

Oh Lizzie, I really feel for you. That is such a lot of rain to deal with. You have a big to do list but you will blitz through it. Curries are great! I hope things dry out for you soon and you get some even weather and bumper Autumn crops.

wow, I see what you mean about the mud and the erosion, luckily (?) we didn’t get that much rain! It can be good to get that occasionally to remind yourself where you need to improve drainage etc, its so hard to tell when its dry, but I sometimes stand out in the rain and watch the water running down our driveway, so I can see where we need to put drains. Bring on next month, all that soil moisture will get everything growing now!

There is always an up side isn’t there. Too funny, I too watch the rain and see where it flows during a downpour, we are in need of many drains but when the ground can’t take any more things move at our place thanks to the volcanic soil. For some reason it likes to move on us bringing rocks to the surface. I think this month is going to be busy but the garden should hopefully take off.

Lizzie I’m so glad you had rain as the ground will soak it all in pity it happened so quickly though. Place looks inspirational and incredible as usual. I dream of having land. You’re doing such a wonderful job growing and harvesting for you’d tribe. Blessings.

Your chillies look amazing and what a great idea to grow the beans up the sunflower stalks. Mother Nature needs to learn to drip fed all this rain rather than all at once I think. Regards Kathy A, Brisbane

i thought i had left a comment but obviously not 🙁
you are one busy gardener! i am definitely exhausted by your to do list. and saddened by the rain affected zukes. gardenign is such tough busiiness some days.